Grab your lucky rabbit’s foot, walk around that ladder and dive into local folklore and superstitions with Vermont Edition. Locally, there’s stories like the Bennington Triangle and Emily's Bridge in Stowe.
There’s also the superstitious behavior we inherit, such as saying “rabbit rabbit” on the first of the month. Many superstitions are passed down through generations.
Helping us make sense of the unexplainable are two folklore experts. Windsor-based Joe Citro, a VPR commentator for many years, is the author of numerous books, including Vermont’s Haunts; Ghosts, Ghouls, and Unsolved Mysteries; and Weird New England: Your Travel Guide to New England's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. Folklorist and Champlain College professor Kerry Noonan earned her PhD in folklore from UCLA and now lives in South Burlington.
Many listeners called and wrote in with some of their favorite superstitions or folklore tales. Here's a few, lightly edited:
Ellen in East Calais: Never give a knife, scissors or any other blades as a gift because it can cut the relationship. It is alright to “sell” the item, so first you ask the recipient to give you a penny. Then you can exchange the knife for the coin.
When seeing someone off on a trip, It’s fine to wave them off, but never watch them disappear. Turn away before the bike, car, train, airplane, etc. would go out of sight.
Never sew clothing while you’re wearing it. Take off the shirt, dress or pants before replacing a button, darning a small rip, or tacking up the hem. If you have no choice (no privacy, nothing else to wear, etc) one person told me that you can protect yourself by holding a piece of thread in your mouth while you’re sewing.
For good luck, make sure that “rabbit rabbit” is the first thing you say when you wake up on the first day of every month.
I like having superstitions. Some of them connect me with my ancestors.
Bruce in South Londonderry: I "knock on wood” when I say something that I want to be true.
Judson: I’m working in my Blacksmith shop today and there are a whole bunch of superstitions about Blacksmiths. It is said iron can drive away elves and fairies, and there are a lot of stories about Blacksmiths tricking the devil to either scare him away or control him. Blacksmith shops are also supposed to have an upside down horseshoe over the door to pour luck in.
Jared: My best friend was a commercial tuna fisherman. I joined him on some off-shore trips and on one occasion, I brought some provisions for a three-day voyage that included bananas. He and his crew saw me unloading the groceries from my truck and yelled in unison, “You can’t bring bananas on a boat!” All three of them had spent at least 25 years fishing and none of them had any idea where the belief came from. Perhaps a fear of slipping on a peel? I never learned the origins.
David: I heard round barns were built so the devil couldn’t hide in the corners.
David in Post Mills: An uncle of mine was a B-24 bomber navigator during World War II. When a large group of bombers took off in formation, sometimes one would have a problem that forced it to return to base. If that happened, one of the crew would shine a very bright 'Aldis Lamp' through a gunner's window in the front of the plane as it dropped out of the formation. At the beginning of one mission, a bright red light swept across my uncle's plane, indicating that another plane was dropping out of formation. A number of weeks later my uncle received a letter from his mother in which she described a dream she had had. She dreamed she saw her son bathed in red light. But the light quickly faded, and she realized her son was safe, and was able to go back to sleep. My uncle flew 31 bombing missions and did return home. There are too many unexplained things to discount the 'supernatural.'
We also received a couple of emails in light of April Fools' Day:
Sara in Weathersfield: I grew up in suburbia and my husband is a native Vermonter. Many years ago, as a new bride, we returned to live on his family farm. At dinner on April 1, my father-in-law, a traditional stoic Vermont farmer, had me convinced that he had milked geese that day. The entire family sat straight faced, and it was not until later that my husband set me straight. This was my introduction to dry Vermont humor.
JD in Thetford: Back in 1996, NPR did a story about a transcontinental pipeline of Starbucks coffee beans carried all the way across the continent. It aired on April 1, and like any NPR story, there were reports from various correspondents. It was very amusing and a pretty great prank coming from a trusted source like NPR.
Broadcast live on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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